First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (June 28)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

My opening this week comes from Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant which will be published by Mulholland on 5 July 2016.

Blurb

It starts with a lie. The kind we’ve all told – to a former acquaintance we can’t quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home.
And the next thing you know, you’re having dinner at their house, and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday – swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of…
Which turns out to be less than perfect. But by the time you’re trapped and sweating in the relentless Greek sun, burning to escape the tension all around you – by the time you start to realise that, however painful the truth might be, it’s the lies that cause the real damage…
… well, by then, it could just be too late. Amazon

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

August 2015

It struck me in the night that it might have started earlier. I sat up in horror and in the darkness, used my fingernail to scratch the word ‘BOOKSHOP’ on the inside of my forearm. It has gone now: the skin is inflamed due to an infected insect bite, which I must further scratched at in my sleep. Still, the act of writing did the trick, as it tends to. This morning I can remember well enough.
Hudson & Co: the secondhand bookshop in Charing Cross Road. I have been assuming it began there – that none of it would have happened if my eye hadn’t been caught be that silly little shop assistant’s red hair. But am I wrong? Were the forces already in motion, in the weeks and months before that? Does the trail of poison lead back, long before the bloody girls disappearance, to university? Or before then, even – to school, to that moment in 1973 when I struggled, puce-faced, into this unforgiving world?

This extract comes from a proof copy.

I’m not usually a fan of a prologue which is what this excerpt appears to amount, to but I think this one does set the story up very well, and better still it isn’t a prologue, there is more from the present later on in this book.

I love a lot of questions to get me thinking before I plunge into the story and this opening really captured my attention.

I love these little envelopes in which to put our comments! (I now have three blogs with this theme! lol).

The book looks very fascinating, and I’m always interested in how lies begin, how they continue, and how impossible it can be to extricate oneself. And how sometimes the lies lead to serious danger. Definitely one to continue.

The blurb sounded fine, but I didn’t like the prologue at all. Too much hinting! I never remember prologues so all of that is wasted on me. The writing looks quite good though, so I’ll wait and hear what you think of the book as a whole…

Yes it is a case of is it a prologue if it doesn’t say so? At least in the case we begin to get the information that ties up to the hints quite quickly so I didn’t completely forget what was said… but I know exactly what you mean, I often have to go back at the end to see what it said haha.

Very intriguing! The synopsis really drew me in, and knowing that, I understood the prologue. Oftentimes the first couple chapters of the prologue is obscure enough you don’t know what’s going on. I would keep reading!